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switching to mac, few questions

J

JosephEsquivel

macrumors regular
Original poster
May 30, 2007
230
0
I have an external drive that has all my personal files, like videos, pics, documents. The external is currently used with my PC, which will soon be happily replaced. When i get my Mac can i just plug this external into it and it will be able to read the files fine?

Also, i know its been asked, but whats the least painful way to watch my Windows media files (vids) on my new Mac?
 
also, when i g et th emac, and i do a clean OS install, whats the average size already taken up on the HDD
 
well i use it on my HP PC, so im not sure what format other than that it is. I want to move evetything over, format the drive, then move everything back with time machine
 
JosephEsquivel said:
well i use it on my HP PC, so im not sure what format other than that it is. I want to move evetything over, format the drive, then move everything back with time machine
Click to expand...

If it's formatted FAT32, you can read it just fine. If it's formatted NTFS, it'll be more problematic (there are drivers available that allow OS X to read NTFS now, thankfully). The easiest way would probably be to directly connect your PC and new Mac, and access your PC remotely. Then, copy over Ethernet. That way you avoid any format issues between Windows and OS X.
 
gauchogolfer said:
If it's formatted FAT32, you can read it just fine. If it's formatted NTFS, it'll be more problematic (there are drivers available that allow OS X to read NTFS now, thankfully). The easiest way would probably be to directly connect your PC and new Mac, and access your PC remotely. Then, copy over Ethernet. That way you avoid any format issues between Windows and OS X.
Click to expand...

yea its ntfs...so the Mac wont be able to read from it? what kind of issues would i run into?
 
JosephEsquivel said:
yea its ntfs...so the Mac wont be able to read from it? what kind of issues would i run into?
Click to expand...

Unless you install some drivers on your iMac, it won't recognize the drive when it's plugged in. Just like what would happen if you plugged in your HFS+ formatted drive into your HP machine. Like I said, you'll be able to work around it somehow, so come back for instructions when your iMac arrives. No worries.
 
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